think like a scientist: crosscutting concepts sentence ...€¦ · these posters are intended to...

Think Like a Scientist: Crosscutting Concepts Sentence Stem Posters

Developed by: Marianne Dobrovolny & Tobi McMillan © Think Big Learning - www.thinkbiglearning.org Overview: These posters are intended to help all students think like scientists. Each poster has multiple sentence stems to help students write and speak about big ideas in STEM. These are based on the crosscutting concepts found in the Next Generation Science Standards and allow students to think about the big picture and make connections in their learning. These sentence starters may be used in a variety of contexts, such as when students are making observations in the natural world or in lab settings, while viewing data, analyzing models, etc.

Big idea: Crosscutting concepts are scientific thinking tools that provide a framework for students to make connections to big ideas in STEM. Materials:

§ 7 Sentence Stem Posters

Materials Prep: § Print and laminate (optional) the 7 posters and post them in the classroom

Procedure: These posters can be used throughout the year to help students think, speak, and write like scientists and engineers. Each poster has sentence stems to help students discuss the crosscutting concepts found in the Next Generation Science Standards. They allow the student to not only make connections within the current unit of study, but also make connections throughout the different disciplines in science. Standards:

NGSS Crosscutting Concepts

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PatternsOne pattern I observe is…

Based on the pattern I observe, I can conclude…

I would group ___________ and ___________ together because…

One similarity I observe between ___________ and ___________ is…

One difference I observe between ___________ and ___________ is…

Cause and Effect

I think that ___________ caused ___________ because…

The relationship between ___________ and ___________ is…

I think ___________ and ___________ affect each other over time by…

If we were to change ___________, I predict that…

Scale and Quantity___________ is about the same size as ___________.

If ___________ were twice as large, I predict that…

If ___________ were half the size, I predict that…

As ___________ increases within the system, so does ___________.

As ___________ increases within the system, ___________ tends to decrease.

Systems and Models

We observed a system that included the following key parts…

One way the key parts of this system work together is…

We used a model to represent ___________ because…

The model represented ___________ well because…

The model of ___________ was limited because…

Energy and Matter

A type of energy I observe in this system is…

Some important examples of matter in this system are…

In the system, we observe energy flowing as…

In the system, we observe matter cycling as…

Structure and Function

The shape of ___________ allows it to…

Some of the structures, or parts, I observe are…

The function of ___________ is affected by its structure because…

The structures in this model show how…

Stability and Change

We observed a change in…

Over time, I would expect ___________ to change because…

One place we observed stability was…

Over time, I think ___________would stay the same because…

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